"I think I like the image of life better than life because I don't think real life is as satisfying as film." — François Truffaut

Saturday, May 29, 2010

The John Williams Blog-a-thon

Please see below all the entries we've received for the John Williams Blog-a-thon. Feel free to post a link to your pieces in the comments section or send me an e-mail — we’ll update the links accordingly. If you do not have a blog of your own, send your pieces to me in Word; and we’ll edit ‘em and put them up on the site.

Although it isn't only about Williams, just last night I posted a lengthy review of the "Amazing Stories" soundtracks, including fairly lengthy comments on the Williams' theme and two episode scores. Here is the link:

My son and I were fortunate enough to catch "Star Wars in Concert" last fall and I wrote a blog post about it and my thoughts on Mr. Williams: http://www.modernishfather.com/2009/11/13/star-wars-in-concert/

Thanks to Ali and Matt for coordinating this as I've been particularly under the weather and swamped with other things of late preventing too much of my active participation. If I'd had the time, I would have done a piece on my favorite Williams score, the one he did for The Accidental Tourist, where he starts simply as the William Hurt character is alone and just adds instruments as the story progresses. I think it's his most beautiful work. I might also address that some of the criticism of his work comes from a tendency to be bombastic to the point of drowning out the action going on in the film beneath the score such as in Oliver Stone's JFK, but who can be sure if the blame there falls on Williams or Stone? It's particularly annoying in Donald Sutherland's great Deep Throat-esque scene which, honestly, needed no score at all to emphasize its drama.

Here's my post about John Williams, in a reference to a film we're not allowed to see, "John Goldfarb, Please Come Home" (1965) that he wrote the music for. Apparently the Notre Dame University stopped it in New York, where I saw it on Long Island in an "All-Weather Drive-In".It starred Shirley MacLaine.